Artists & Illustrators Summer 2022

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Your summer of painting All the advice you need

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Contents A RT I S T S & I L LUS T R AT OR S • S U M M E R 2022

Regulars

5 SKETCHBOOK Quick tips, ideas and inspiration, plus summer’s must-see art shows 18 PRIZE DR AW Win £1,000 of art tuition from Raw Umber Studios 20 WE PRESENT... Portfolio Plus member Ruth Swain 75 YOU TELL US Write in and win a £50 Atlantis Art voucher 82 PICTURE THIS Susan Clare on why her David Attenborough portrait means so much to her

Inspiration 14 IN THE STUDIO George Frederick Thomas brings Brazil to his South London studio 22 HOW I PAINT Alice Hole reveals how she captures the wonderful Cornish landscape 28 THE BRITISH ART PRIZE Our art competition opens for entries

36 THE BIG INTERVIEW Bruce McLean on why he will not be confined to just one medium

36

42 OR AL HISTORY A look at Jean Michel Basquiat from those who knew him best: his two sisters 48 RETROSPECTIVE Ian Beck shares his lockdown experiences of seeing the world afresh

Techniques

54 IN - DEPTH Jake Spicer rounds up his latest life drawing series with by focusing on oil pastel

22

60 SERIES Up next from Ann Witheridge is a lesson on how to push colour in your landscapes 64 MASTERCL ASS Travel to New York via this eight-step demo on how to paint a city scene 70 STEP - BY- STEP Follow Laura Ryan as she draws a pet portrait with an unusual colour palette 76 STEP - BY- STEP edding ambassador Louise Angus shows how to paint a vibrant bee

54

BRUCE MCLEAN

30 ART HISTORY A deep dive into the art-packed period between the two world wars

E DITOR' S L ET TER

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THIS MONTH’S COVER ARTWORK

By Alice Hole

Sit back...

…and relax with your summer issue of Artists & Illustrators. The cover, by artist Alice Hole, is a scene from her beloved Cornwall, whose rugged beauty and heightened colours are depicted in her enchanting artwork. For something erring on the side of abstract, I catch up with awardwinning Scottish sculptor, painter and ceramicist Bruce McLean. His dazzling monumental garden paintings are the subject of a major exhibition this summer. Then we hear from the family of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who remains one of the most important and influential artists of the modern and contemporary art period. They detail his meteoric rise – he reached an unprecedented level of fame at just 20 years old – and untimely death, just seven years later.

Ian Beck is one of the UK’s most celebrated authors and illustrators, famously known for designing Sir Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album cover. He tells us how living in lockdown taught him to see his neighbourhood with fresh eyes.

Although that period is thankfully a thing of the past, it’s a way of seeing that he has continued to use to this day.

It’s that time of year again - our annual British Art Prize 2022, in partnership with edding. It’s open to artists of all abilities, whether you are an amateur, an emerging artist or a seasoned professional; all ideas, mediums and techniques will be considered. As well as a prize fund worth more than £15,000 (which includes a luxury cruise and valuable editorial coverage) the competition will provide winning artists with a platform to gain important exposure and recognition for their work, including extensive coverage in this magazine and their winning paintings being exhibited at a major London gallery. It’s a brilliant opportunity to get your work and name out into the wider art community. Don’t delay: get your entries in today!

EDITORIAL Editor Niki Browes Art Editor Stuart Selner Assistant Editor Rebecca Bradbury Contributors Martha Alexander, Eileen Clark, Helen Hansen, Anna Mason, Madeline Morrow, Adrian Morby, Jake Spicer, Ann Witheridge

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INTRODUCING

LOUISE ANGUS

Louise is the owner of Lillypea Designs and has been working in the creative industry for nearly 20 years, diversifying in the last five years to painting and focusing on watercolours.

Known for her vivid pieces on nature and animals, her work can be seen at lillypea.co.uk and @lillypeadesigns.

4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

CHRISTOPHER PAUL STEVENS Chris has worked as a professional studio artist for more than twenty years, focusing on pushing the boundaries of photorealism by exploring ways of capturing and manipulating the photograph. His work can be found in galleries throughout the US.

FR ANCES SPALDING

Frances is an art historian, biographer and specialist in modern British art. Her recent books include John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in Art, a monograph on the artist Prunella Clough and The Bloomsbury Group, a brief and entertaining introduction to a famous group of friends.

SUSAN CL ARE

Susan Clare is an awardwinning, international watermedia painter, who inspires deeper connections to our natural environment.

A twenty-year scuba career informs her work, as fascinating sea creatures emerge from ambiguous passages of colour, pattern, texture and light.

Write to us!

Send us your latest paintings, tips or artistic discoveries and you could win a £50 voucher: info@artistsandillustrators.co.uk @AandImagazine /ArtistsAndIllustrators @AandImagazine @AandImagazine

Sketchbook T I PS • A DV ICE • EX H IBI TIONS • NEWS • R EV IEWS

E D ITE D BY R E B ECC A B R ADB U RY

MAXIM PETER GRIFFIN

Things we love...

Among the latest masterpieces to bowl us over are Maxim Peter Griffin’s mixed media paintings, featured in his new book Field Notes: Walking the Territory. A combination of black ink, acrylic, watercolour, pen, sea water, salt and digital passages of colour, the playful yet evocative works combine with Maxim’s prose to present a remarkable record of spending a year in the Lincolnshire landscape.

Unbound, £20. unbound.com Maxim Peter Griffin, On Hoe Hill – Early August, mixed media, 30x21cm ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 5

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S U N F LOW E R P O P E A U D E PA R F U M We can’t stop talking about this unique collaboration between the Van Gogh Museum and perfume brand Floral Street. Together, they have transformed the joy, gratitude and optimism of van Gogh's iconic Sunflowers series into a sumptuous citrus fragrance. There’s no guarantee your skills will become a match for the Dutch master, but the perfume's vibrant, expressive notes are sure to put you in the right frame of mind for your next painting session. floralstreet.com

BOOK OF THE MONTH

Join us online!

PETER SAUL

by Annabelle Teneze and Richard Shiff When it comes to Peter Saul, we’ve learnt to expect the unexpected. He might capture everyday objects, such as steaks, iceboxes and toilets, but his depictions jumble offbeat references with riotous colour palettes, dark humour and moral ambiguity. This book, accompanying a show of new works at the Michael Weiner gallery until 10 September, reveals more about his 60-year career.

Rizzoli, £60. rizzoliusa.com

THE DIARY Open calls, prizes and artist opportunities

2 2 JUNE Illustrate an artwork in response to Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death and enter it into the fi rst ever Folio Book Illustration Award by this date. foliosociety.com

3 JULY Entry into the Contemporary British Painting Prize 2022 closes tonight. All artists working and living in the British Isles are eligible. contemporary britishpainting.com

If you love the magazine’s redesign, you’re going to fall head over heels for the new look Artists & Illustrators website.

It’s still one of the biggest resources for artists on the internet, but a fresh new feel makes our how to guides, competitions and interviews even more enjoyable to read. artistsandillustrators.co.uk

6 JULY Submit your prints into the International Original Print exhibition by this date for the chance to appear in an exhibition at London’s Bankside Gallery. re-printmakers.com

21 JULY The Guildford Arts Annual Summer Exhibition ends its two-week run at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre today. Visit to see work from local painters. guildfordarts.org

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7

GRACE GREEN

Why not try...

ACC ’S INAUGUR AL EXHIBITION One art initiative to form and flourish during the pandemic was Lucy Kent’s Art for Charity Collective.

Proving to still be a hit, its first ever in-person exhibition will take place in London from 21 June to 1 July. The 12-day showcase will not just be a place to discover and buy art from the likes of mixed media artist Grace Green [right], but it also offers art workshops and the chance to watch last issue’s cover artist, Christabel Blackburn, paint live. artforcharity collective.com

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The art of adventure

Sketchbook

Stay committed to chronicling your holidays this summer with these five top tips from travel journal veteran Abbey Sy

1 SHOW UP REGULARLY You don’t have to journal every day but showing up is always key. Whether it’s once or twice in a trip or dedicating half an hour every day to journaling, showing up can mean many things. But it’s all about making it a part of your priority list. Carving out time to journal and honing your habit is essential.

2 CHOOSE A MEDIUM THAT SUITS YOU Choose a medium that suits you now but also allows you to explore something different. This allows your journaling style to evolve and change over time. I always had a fi neliner pen with me when I started travel journaling. As I continued to travel, I learned how to use watercolour for my journaling process.

Eventually, I tried different mediums Wherever you and techniques, using ephemera, go, always take collage and mixed media for my travel a sketchbook journals. The best part is I’m still fi nding new ways to create as I keep journaling.

A sketchbook is perfect for documenting your travels

Abbey shares her composition tips and other creative ideas

3 TAKE TIME TO REFLECT Sometimes we get so consumed with wanting to journal that we forget what we’re journaling about. When you obsess over what the journal spread will look like rather than take time to look back on the memory itself, the process can become disillusioning. Remember that travel journaling is a way for us to build a deeper relationship with travel and ourselves.

4 MAKE IT A PRIORITY Bring the same level of commitment to journaling that you bring to booking a ticket for your next trip. Be sure to make journaling a priority by bringing your travel art kit with you or take your pocket journal along wherever you go. You never know what you’ll fi nd when travelling.

5 EXPLORE AND TRAVEL MORE What’s travel journaling without travel? Keep honing your journaling habit by taking on more adventures, near and far. Consider joining journaling groups' hangouts, or even meetups. This can open your network to new friends and connections and could inspire you further on your travel journaling journey.

This is an edited extract from The Art of the Travel Journal: Chronicle Your Life with Drawing, Painting, Lettering, and Mixed Media by Abbey Sy. Out in shops on 9 August, £18.99. quarto.com ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 9

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Exhibitions NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND

T H E B E S T A R T S H OW S T O V I S I T T H I S S U M M E R

DÜRER: THE MAKING OF A RENAISSANC E MASTER 17 June to 25 September Among art’s greatest polymaths is Albrecht Dürer, who was not only a master draughtsman, painter and printmaker, but also an accomplished writer and theoretician. Concluding a five-year collaboration between the Barber Institute and the Royal 10 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Collection Trust, this small but significant exhibition reveals how the Renaissance man took advantage of new technologies in printmaking, the growing social mobility of artists and an expansion in travel and communication to make his extraordinary talents known across Europe.

The Barber Institute of Fine Art, Birmingham. barber.org.uk

THE SEC RET GARDEN 6 July to 4 September Children’s books are often made even more magical by their illustrations and this family friendly exhibition celebrates the pictures that have brought Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden to life over 100 years.

Alongside works from the first UK and US editions, will be contributions from Winniethe-Pooh illustrator E H Shepard, and Lauren Child, who provided the drawings for the centenary version of The Secret Garden in 2011.

The Garden Museum, London. gardenmuseum.org.uk

© THE ARTIST ( SUMUYYA KHADER) XXXXXXX

ROYAL COLLECTION TRUST / © HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II 2020

A TASTE FOR IMPRE SSIONISM: MODERN FRENC H ART FROM MILLET TO MATISSE 30 July to 13 November As with all radical works of art, the establishment takes a while to catch on. For example, when Impressionism began to surface, it was mocked by the press. However, some Scots thankfully had the foresight to invest.

This round-up explores how these collectors have made Scotland home to one of the world’s greatest collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Iconic artists included in the exhibition include Degas, Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro and Cézanne.

Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh. nationalgalleries.org

PIC ASSO INGRE S: FAC E TO FAC E Until 9 October Pablo Picasso once said, “Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal.” It’s a quote that perfectly sums up this unique chance to see the Spanish painter’s Woman with a Book alongside the 19th Century work that inspired it – Madame Moitessier by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. After seeing the portrait in Paris in 1921, Picasso would repeatedly reference Ingres in his art, with this get-together of two great works helping to trace the continuous thread of artistic development between the two centuries.

The National Gallery, London. nationalgallery.org.uk

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND EMASSIMODECARLO. PHOTO: ALESSANDRO ZAMBIANCHI

TEMPOR ARY ATL AS: MAPPING THE SELF IN THE ART OF TODAY 25 June to 25 September Cartography is one of those rare practices considered both a science and an art and expanding the concept of the map even further is this new exhibition of contemporary work. Although adopting a traditional approach to mapping – providing a visual representation of reality – the creatives in the show focus their gaze inwards. Themes covered include spirituality, memory and identity, with the aim to deepen the dialogue on personal experience in relation to the society in which we live.

MOSTYN, Llandudno. mostyn.org

© SUCCESSION PICASSO/DACS 2021 / PHOTO: THE NORTON SIMON FOUNDATION. © THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON

LAUREN CHILD

SHIF TING PERSPECTIVES Until 4 September The interpretation of art is always in flux and encouraging the process is this collection of works. Nearly 100 paintings, ranging from the 17th Century to the present day, have been brought together to explore the representation of people of African, Caribbean and Asian heritage.

The result is a collection that examines identity, stereotypes and unequal power relationships from oft-forgotten perspectives and previously silenced voices.

Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds. museums andgalleries. leeds.gov.uk

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 11

ADVERTORIAL Alessandra Alexandroff , Ash Tree Obligate

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Helen R Jones, The Edge of Brightness

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high-quality arts degrees via distance learning, giving you the ability to access education in the arts anywhere in the world without the need to travel to a campus, classroom or teacher.

Let the learning come to you…

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he Open College of the Arts is an open access, distance learning provider of higher education courses based in the North of England. A non-profit educational charity, its aim is to be at the forefront of student-led creative arts education through open, enhanced and supported distance learning for an evolving art society. Widening participation in arts education through flexible distance and online learning, it provides high-quality teaching and enables students to achieve their intended qualifications and awards.

The student-led creative arts education offered by the college is enhanced through an online learning environment and supported by academic staff and peer dialogue. Effective learning and teaching is delivered through a dynamic combination of discipline-specific knowledge, understanding and application. This is aligned with an appropriate creative arts education suitable for online learning 12 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

environments and supported by qualified academic staff who are active practitioners.

You could be launching your career, changing jobs or setting out on a completely new journey. Whichever stage you’re at, the skills and knowledge you’ll gain from an Open College of the Arts qualification will help you on the way to a creative career.

The study of fi ne art at the Open College of the Arts focuses on several concepts within art, including drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. While acknowledging the historical atelier, study in these areas builds on and respects the tradition, as well as providing opportunities to explore contemporary approaches.

Students can develop their own practices, drawing upon their chosen reference and allowing them to craft a space in which to inhabit fi ne art today. Obtaining knowledge and understanding through creative, technical and intellectual activity allows students free range to explore and expand through endless possibilities.

Mick Whyte, Whitewebbs 13

The Open College of Arts courses include…

Mark Taylor, Mother Hubbard’s wake Lucy Farrington, Slipping Through Their Fingers

Deborah Masters, Beckenham Place Park Bluebells

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Susan Warren, Exiles II

BA (HONS) ILLUSTR ATION DEGREE Illustration has the power to take someone on a journey and communicate information through creativity and visual storytelling. If you’re ready to learn new skills, while enhancing your ability, our BA (Hons) Illustration degree is the one for you. It introduces you to all the different types of drawing and image-making, such as magazines and book illustrations, commercial briefs, collage, mixed media, comics and graphic novels. The course provides the opportunity for you to sketch, draw and create captivating visuals, interpret a brief, experiment and communicate your ideas using your own personal, visual language.

You’ll become a creative problem solver, learning how to generate ideas, construct creative narratives, undertake your own visual research and develop a fluency in all illustrative contexts. Throughout the course of study, your specialist tutor will support you and your work, enabling you to work independently, ready for the world of visual creativity.

BA (HONS) PAINTING DEGREE The ethos of the painting department is essentially one of generosity. We nurture a space to explore painting in ways which are pleasurable, curious and adventurous. The BA (Hons) Painting degree supports students from the beginning of each person’s primary relationship with their practice. This starts with techniques and processes and extends into the development of a significant personal relationship with painting as a discipline. That sustaining relationship provides confidence and focus to reflect on and evaluate the unique contexts within which each operates and to engage creatively with the world of ideas and experience. The results are frequently highly ambitious and excitingly diverse, from traditional portraiture in oils to sculptural installation.

For more information, visit: oca.ac.uk ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 1 3

Macuxi Girls with Capybara, oil on linen, 60 x 80cm

H O W I W O RK I N T HE S T UDI O

George Frederick Thomas From creating caricatures at his local farmer’s market to wading through alligator-infested waters in the Amazon, no place is off limits for this oil painter’s practice. Rebecca Bradbury visits his South London studio to find out more

W

hen George Frederick Thomas arrived for a week-long homestay with the indigenous Brazilian Macuxi tribe earlier this year, it was the middle of the night. Not only did the darkness make it impossible to take in the sun-scorched plains and rainforest-covered mountains of the region, but it also led to a case of mistaken identity when a friendly creature bounded over to greet him.

“I thought it was a dog,” George recalls.

“But it had quite wiry fur. Then I realised it wasn’t a dog at all, but a capybara. A pair of indigenous girls had rescued it from a nearby river, where it had been abandoned and was easy prey for the alligators and jaguars. The tribe took such a liking to the animal, they decided to keep it permanently.” ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 1 5

The two sisters and their domesticated capybara – a pig-shaped, semi-aquatic mammal which holds the impressive title of being the biggest rodent on Earth – are now the subject of a charming portrait. Yet, having racked up six visits to the country in eight years, the 27-year-old artist has many more paintings from his time exploring the ever vivacious and varied areas of Brazil.

From wading through alligator-infested waters in the Amazon with his art kit held atop his head, to chilling on the golden sands of Copacabana Beach, the country has provided no end of inspirational fodder for George. Even with less-than-hospitable painting conditions – think scorching sunshine, pesky mosquitoes and ants biting at his ankles – the artist has been beguiled.

Part of the appeal for George lies in his love of mixed martial arts. Before becoming a full-time artist, he competed as a semiprofessional cage fighter. Keeping up the practice as a hobby, he continues to train in the likes of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Capoeira, a martial art that enslaved Africans would disguise as a folk dance while working on the plantations of 16th Century Brazil.

The switch from cage fighter to fine artist might seem unusual, but George is keen to point out the similarities. “Training in martial arts teaches you how to keep a level head in a very competitive, high pressure situation,” he says. “When something goes wrong, instead of panicking, you need to think of a defence. There is always a technique you can use as a counterattack.

“A similar mentality is needed for painting. It can be relaxing and nice, but it can also be intense. You still need to focus and you’re battling with the canvas and paint to make [the artwork] the way you’re visualising in your head.”

Both martial arts and painting were part of George’s childhood. In year eight, he remembers winning an art competition.

One of the prizes was a book on how to draw caricatures and, picking up the skills quickly, he would entertain his classmates by creating funny likenesses of teachers.

“They ended up getting put into a student newspaper,” he says with a grimace. “I thought, oh dear, these teachers are going to see these terribly unflattering caricatures of themselves and be very unhappy. Especially as there was one of this really strict maths teacher. I remember walking through school and him calling me over to ask me how much I wanted for it.”

This fear-filled encounter ended up being one of George’s first sales. He then began earning money by drawing caricatures at Stroud market, not far from his childhood 16 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Almond Orchard, Andalusia, Spain, oil on panel, 30x25cm

Toucan in Roraima, Brazil, oil on panel, 60x40cm

Praia Vermelha, Rio de Janeiro, oil on panel, 40x25cm

H O W I WO R K I N T HE S T UDI O

O Guarani, oil on canvas, 205x165cm

Denzel Bentley, oil on canvas, 70x50cm

home in Wiltshire. After moving to London in 2014 to study at LARA, he continued his enterprise in Piccadilly Circus.

Such was the rigorous academic nature of LARA, first year students were banned from painting in colour. But George and his pals would go plein air painting at the weekends, armed with a plentiful supply of oil colours.

The artist’s love of painting on-the-spot has endured, and he regularly ventures out into the capital come rain or shine, capturing the likes of Wellington Arch in Hyde Park or his sister rowing along the Thames.

But there was one problem – a big dissatisfaction with boxes on the market designed to transport wet oil paintings. The solution was to create his own. “I came up with a design where there are two slots that you can slide together with an elasticated strap. I was using a handmade version of this, and people started asking if I could make one for them. Now I sell them on my Etsy shop. They’re made from recycled plastic and the elastic strap means you can pretty much fit in any size of painting.”

When not painting en plein air, George can be found in his south east London studio. Part of the ASC studio group, the former office block has been fully outfitted for artists and other creatives, and George shares his space with two old classmates.

“It has an art school feel to it and it’s nice sharing with others,” he says. “If someone else is there working, it forces me to work.

If I’m there on my own and not feeling very inspired, I’ll start procrastinating.”

When in the studio, George spends longer on his underdrawings and still favours a direct painting approach – although it’s a far more detailed process of focusing on one area at a time. The major difference between working inside and out, however, is the abandonment of black pigment.

“I avoid using black when painting plein air, as I like to look for more colour variation in the shadows,” he says. “This adds more vibrancy and creates a better light effect.

When black is on the palette, there’s a tendency to reach for it and it makes areas duller, especially when painting alla prima.”

George shares this process on his YouTube channel and, although many of these videos take place in far-flung, exotic places, his motivation for painting is much more wholesome: “You get to observe and take things in. You can really see how the magic works and when you recreate that on your canvas, it’s so rewarding.”

George’s exhibition, Viva Brazil, will run at Sala Brasil in the Brazilian Embassy, London, from 18 to 22 July. georgefrederickthomas.com ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 17

LUCA INDRACCOLO

PR IZE DRAW

LIZET DINGEMANS

THE PRIZES One winner, chosen at random, will win a place on Luca Indraccolo’s Figure Painting course, worth £450, running at Raw Umber Studios, Stroud, from 20 to 23 July.

Two runners up will win a place on Lizet Dingemans’ Still Life course, worth £200 each, running at the studios on 24 and 25 September.

A third runner up will win a place on Lizet Dingemans’ Portrait Course, worth £200, running at the studios on 26 and 27 November.

WIN!

£1,000 OF CLASSICAL ART TUITION Watch your representational art skills soar after a workshop at RAW UMBER STUDIOS

O

ne of the best ways to improve your painting is to attend an art course led by an accomplished tutor. Not only will your skills improve, but you’re also bound to pick up some new techniques, give your motivation a boost and bond with some like-minded classmates.

With all these benefits of attending an art course in mind, we’ve teamed up with Raw Umber Studios for this month’s prize draw.

The renowned art school, based in Stroud, is offering four lucky readers of Artists & Illustrators the chance to each win a place on one of their popular workshops.

Among the classically-trained tutors at the school are Artists & Illustrators contributor Lizet Dingemans and portrait painter Luca Indraccolo. In two- or four-day courses, students can learn a variety of practical approaches to creating representational

art, with all levels - from beginner and intermediate to advanced - catered for.

As well as offering a variety of in-person courses and untutored, drop-in life drawing sessions, Raw Umber Studios also provides regular online options. Life drawing classes take place every Sunday at 4pm, followed by a figure drawing class on Wednesday evening. During these digital sessions, a tutor is always on hand to provide a demo, offer hints and tips, and provide group feedback at the end.

For those who love online learning, the studios also offer a selection of digital subscriptions. As part of these packages, students can attend the two weekly drawing sessions as well as a wealth of other online resources, including new videos and access to Raw Umber’s library of 3D images. rawumberstudios.com

HOW TO ENTER Enter by noon on 8 July 2022, either at artistsandillustrators.co.uk/ competitions or by filling in the form below and returning it to: Raw Umber Studios Prize Draw, Artists & Illustrators, Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, Jubilee House, 2 Jubilee Place, London SW3 3TQ TERMS & CONDITIONS Travel and accommodation is not included.

No cash or course alternatives are available. For full terms and conditions, visit chelseamagazine.com/terms

R AW U M B E R S T U D I O S WO R K S H O P PRIZE DRAW Name:

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Address:

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Postcode: Email:

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Telephone:

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The closing date for entries is noon on 8 July 2022.

Please tick if you are happy to receive relevant information from The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd. via email , post or phone or Raw Umber Studios via email

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ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 19

We present...

This m o n t h ’s spotlight on a Portfolio member

The Liberty Arts Prize winner RUTH SWAIN

C

an a still life painting be a form of portraiture? This was a question posed to Portfolio member Ruth Swain during her recent studies at the Art Academy London. It also turned out to be the starting point for her collection of oil works depicting everyday, domestic objects.

“The first in the series is a pile of used tea bags obscuring my son,” the Oxfordshirebased artist explains. “I realised I could simplify these stories by removing the people. I wanted my audience to identify with the images and feel their human quality without the figure being involved.”

From a still-plugged-in iron to a muddy pair of Dr Martens left in the sink, Ruth’s still life subjects are hard to separate from the person they’re attached to. “They are a portrait of my life,” she adds, pointing to the narratives she weaves into her artworks.

Ruth’s storytelling prowess also comes into play in a self-portrait, where her face is hidden behind the book, The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth. Alongside symbolism such as this there is also humour. “I want people to smile when they see my work,” she says.

“I’m always looking for an idea in a painting, a wry twist or something a bit surreal.”

Standing out on the technical side are the hues Ruth mixes to make her white tones. Working within a narrow range, she manages to capture the lilacs and pinks of white, which often go unnoticed. “The longer you look at any object or person,” she says, “the more colours you see and that’s what makes pictures interesting.”

Astute powers of observation are also required for capturing a likeness, as well as noticing the marvels of the commonplace.

“I want to elevate the ordinary,” Ruth adds, rounding up her practice. “I want to find beauty in the minutiae of everyday life.” portfolio.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/ ruthswain 20 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

That sinking feeling, oil, 50x45cm

Airing my dirty laundry, oil, 59x89cm

Self-portrait with rubber gloves, oil, 89x59cm

Alice Hole Cornish artist ALICE HOLE is mesmerised by the rugged beauty and heightened colours of the area, as depicted in her enchanting artworks, finds Niki Browes

N

etscher was part of Alice Hole’s family’s double-barrelled name before the Second World War and family lore states that they are descended from the Dutch portrait artist Caspar Netscher, who was a contemporary of Rembrandt. Having a master painter rumoured as a distant relative is a fine tale to dine out on but creativity is firmly in her lineage. Her father is an architect – who is still working at 80 – and, as a child, Alice loved leafing through his technical drawing reference books. She found the architectural details beautiful to look at and longed to be able to create drawings of that quality.

A degree in multidisciplinary 3D art followed. Drawing based, the course encouraged lots of sketchbook work to inspire ideas for what the students would go on to produce. By the end, it was clear she had become much more focused on her sketchbook drawings than any of her three-dimensional work. From university, she started selling paintings and drawings through a friend’s shop and, after taking a break to start a family, in 2012, they moved to Cornwall. Enchanted by its rugged beauty, she was compelled to paint the area’s stunning views of lush countryside and its wonderful seascapes and historic coves. ▸

2 2 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

H O W I WO R K HO W I PA I NT

Pause While the Tide Replies, Coverack, acrylic, 76x51cm

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 2 3

H OW I WORK HO W I P A I N T

It’s Cornwall’s links to the past which inspire me the most. When I paint or draw a view of farmland, a mining town or a harbour, I can feel the echoes of the people who have lived in this landscape for millennia. I am reminded of those who have tried to harness the land and sea to survive in this area, which is at times breathtakingly beautiful and, at others, treacherous. It is this historical atmosphere I try to convey within all my work: for as long as people have lived here, they have lived alongside this beautiful environment, not fighting against it, but respecting and reacting to it.

2 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

The light in Cornwall is so very special.

There’s a purity to it that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Maybe it’s being surrounded by sea on three sides, maybe it’s being as far south as you can get on mainland England, or maybe there is a special mystical magic, as testified to by many who have lived here over the centuries. Whatever the scientific, or more magical reason, the result is an incredible purity of colour. It is like the settings on a TV have been turned up. The colours are more resonant, the contrasts are greater, and there is a beautiful clarity. The sea can be the most incredible shade of deep turquoise, one that I have not seen anywhere

Drawing is the bedrock of all art and is vital to my practice and improvement else, even though I have always lived and holidayed on the coast. Equally, during storms, it can turn a most magnificent shade that I can only describe as angry green.

Artists have always been drawn to Cornwall

H O W I W O R K HO W I PA I NT Autumn’s Gentle Drift, Penrose, acrylic, 75x60cm

Walking Through Winter, St Michael’s Churchyard, Helston, acrylic, 74x42cm

because of this unique light and, if you haven’t already visited, I encourage you to experience it for yourself.

I love both painting and drawing.

Drawing, for me, is the bedrock of all art and it is vital to my practice to keep improving my observational skills. I love to draw using graphite and have been experimenting recently with carbon pencils to achieve dramatic contrasts.

Graphite is such a wonderfully versatile medium. It can create soft, smooth gradients or rough textures. There’s something simple yet amazing about creating a piece of ▸

A Moment of Shelter, Cadgwith, acrylic, 30x42cm

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 2 5

HOW I WORK HO W I P A I N T artwork with just a piece of paper and a pencil. Drawing is quite an unforgiving medium, if it isn’t exactly right, it will jump out at you, even if you can’t quite fathom why. I am constantly drawing and learning to translate what I can see onto paper, not what I think I can see – which can be two very different things.

I use acrylic for my paintings. I have experimented with oils, but I’m intolerant to the fumes and I’m terrible at smudging what I’ve already worked on, due to their slow drying nature. I paint by building up many thin layers and glazes. This technique produces a real depth of colour, which is very suitable for capturing the Cornish light and the hues it creates. Using thin layers also helps me to include the intricate detail that I see whenever I observe a view. My favourite surface to paint on is hot press watercolour paper, which allows me to draw a detailed and accurate drawing at the beginning of the artwork. As in my drawings, capturing different textures is something I enjoy, and this can be achieved very well with acrylics by using thin washes, thicker applications or a combination of techniques.

My paintings or drawings are usually trying to convey an atmosphere A good composition, for me, draws the viewer right into the artwork. It should guide the eyes around and into the scene, so the person looking at it feels as if they are there. I use perspective a lot to achieve this, as well as thinking about the foreground and how it relates to the background. I will often sketch out or edit a photograph in many different ways until I think the image has the right feel to it.

My paintings and drawings are usually trying to convey an atmosphere or story and getting the right composition can really help this.

I have always found detailed artwork incredibly satisfying to look at. As a child, as well as looking at my dad’s architectural books, I loved Richard Scarry’s illustrations and was fascinated by encyclopaedias, with exploded drawings of machinery to show how it worked.

26 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

I appreciate many forms of art, including Impressionism, but what I love more than anything are detailed drawings, etchings, and paintings, which are a feast for the eyes. Whenever I look at a beautiful view, it’s the detail that I see.

I love visiting galleries when I get the chance and seeing work by the masters; there’s always something to appreciate and learn. I recently saw an exhibition in Bath of Rossetti’s drawings, which were exquisite. I was fascinated by the way he built up tone using tiny pencil marks. I have always been particularly inspired by Canaletto. His detailed paintings of Venice are beautifully executed and capture a moment in time. There is so much to look at in his work and you feel like you were there experiencing just what he saw and felt at the time. I could immerse myself in his paintings for hours, which I hope is how people feel about my work too.

I always listen to audiobooks and podcasts whilst I paint and draw. I’ve found that they are very useful in distracting the part of my brain that overthinks what I am doing. If I am lost in a book, I paint much more intuitively.

Social media has been vital in getting my work seen and for making sales of my originals and signed prints.

Sometimes, when I post a new artwork, it will be seen by 10,000-20,000 people across my social media, which is far more than I could reach in one gallery alone. It is a great tool for getting your work and name out there but, of course, nothing can beat seeing the work in the flesh, which gives it much more impact.

I suffer from anxiety and depression and a creative rut is usually one of the first signs that my mental health is going through a bad patch. The best way for me to deal with that is to be very kind and gentle with myself. I find that my inner critical voice can get very loud during those times and that just makes the issues I’m having with my artwork worse. I try to challenge my inner critic and, if necessary, take a break from social media and sometimes, art itself. Taking a short break to take time to heal is very important, as I found out recently after losing my mother at the beginning of this year. The desire to create will come back and having some time away can give you clarity and a fresh enthusiasm. alicehole.co.uk ▫

Along the Sunlit Path, St Michael’s Churchyard, Helston, acrylic, 30x30cm

H O W I WO R K HO W I PA I NT Reflecting on Porthleven, acrylic, 65x34cm

First Port of Call, Porthleven, acrylic, 75x60cm

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 27

rıtısh B The

SARITA MAHARJAN

ART rıze P 2022

STEVE STRODE

I N PA R TN E R S H I P W ITH

S U P P O R TE D BY

Artists & Illustrators is thrilled to be back with The British Art Prize 2022. Enter today for the chance to win some truly great prizes, have your work exhibited at a major London gallery and have your work featured in this magazine Finest artists‘ colours www.schmincke.de

M E D I A PA R TN E R S

2 8 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

W

e’re delighted to be back with our annual British Art Prize in association with edding, the go-to specialists in writing, marking and visual communication. This major national art competition will expose winning artists of all levels to a far-reaching platform to gain valuable publicity and recognition for their work.

Open to everyone – whether you’re an amateur, emerging artist or a professional – all styles, media and techniques will be

CO MPE T I T I O N

Prizes

The British Art Prize has five fantastic prizes. They are:

FIRST PRIZE

STEPHANIE CROCKETT

JACKIE HENDERSON

BELINDA REYNELL

The overall winner of the British Art Prize will receive a £3,000 cash prize, a seven-night luxury AmaWaterways river cruise for two on the Seine worth more than £5,000, a £250 gift voucher from Rosemary & Co, a six-page feature in a future issue of Artists & Illustrators and the winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery.

considered. To celebrate our joining up with edding, this year there will also be a one-off extra prize: the edding acrylic prize where the only requirement is that the submitted painting is completed in the medium.

The British Art Prize offers an unprecedented level of national exposure over three major magazine brands and the chance for artists to sell their artwork to a combined audience of almost 1,000,000 art lovers and collectors. There is also a whopping prize fund worth more than £15,000, which includes cash prizes, art vouchers and the chance to be included in an exhibition at a major London art gallery in the autumn of this year. Shortlisted artists will be invited to a prestigious opening evening reception alongside artists, collectors and other VIP guests. Everyone who enters will also receive a +1 invitation to the exhibition.

The seven-night luxury AmaWaterways river cruise for two on the Seine, worth over £5,000, includes: ● Seven nights luxury accommodation in an outside stateroom ● All onboard dining in a variety of venues including Chef’s Table speciality restaurant ● Unlimited fine wine, beer and soft drinks with lunch and dinner ● Sip & Sail Daily Cocktail Hour ● Wellness Programme with a dedicated Wellness Host ● A wide choice of included excursions with small groups and knowledgeable local guides including: ∙ Monet’s home and gardens in Giverny ∙ Artists walk through Auvers-sur-Oise, the final home of Vincent van Gogh ∙ Honfleur, regarded as the birthplace of the Impressionist movement ∙ Guided hiking and biking tours, with complimentary bicycles for independent exploration

SECOND PRIZE

A £500 cash prize and a Derwent Lightfast wooden box (with 100 pencils) and Lightfast paper pad 12x16” (together worth £520).

Inclusion in the Artists & Illustrators British Art Prize winners’ special issue where a branded 10-page editorial will include images of all the shortlist and winners. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. derwentart.com

THIRD PRIZE

A £500 cash prize, £500 worth of Schmincke Horadam Supergranulating Watercolours and inclusion in the British Art Prize winners’ special issue where a branded 10-page editorial will include images of all the shortlist and winners. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery.

THE EDDING ACRYLIC PRIZE

The only requirement is that your painting[s] are completed in the medium. The winner will receive £500 worth of edding acrylic materials and inclusion in the Artists & Illustrators British Art Prize winner’s special issue. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. edding.com

THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

A £1,000 cash prize, a Pegasus Art voucher worth £500 and a feature in the January 2023 issue of Artists & Illustrators. The winning painting will be shown at an exhibition at a major London gallery. pegasusart.co.uk

How to enter

Entering The British Art Prize couldn’t be easier. Visit artistsandillustrators.co.uk/ britishartprize and simply fill out the online form. Attach digital photographs of your artworks when requested and click the submit button to complete your entry. The entry fee for the first artwork is £15 and £12 for any additional artwork.

Selection process

Submissions close at 5pm on 31 July 2022. Our panel of judges will select a shortlist of 50 artworks, including the three top prize winners. The People’s choice Award will be decided by a public vote.

The British Art Prize 2022 shortlist will be announced online on Friday 30 September and in the November issue of Artists & Illustrators.

If you’ve entered, visit artistsandillustrators. co.uk after that date to see if your work has been shortlisted. Readers will also be able to vote for their favourite shortlisted artwork at artistsandillustrators.co.uk/britishartprize

Enter for free

Portfolio Plus members can enter The British Art Prize 2022 free of charge Portfolio Plus is an exciting online community that allows you to share, showcase and sell your artwork for as little as £2.49 per month.

As well as free entry into The British Art Prize, other membership benefits include: • Sell your artwork commission free to an active audience of more than 100,000 monthly visitors • Access exclusive competitions, opportunities and offers • Appear in Artists & Illustrators, social media, newsletters and more!

Sign up to Portfolio Plus at artistsandillustrators.co.uk T’s & C’s Complimentary stateroom is for a seven-night Paris and Normandy Seine cruise departing in March 2023. Accommodation is based in a Category E stateroom and includes port charges. Stateroom can be claimed within 60 days of departure date, subject to availability and capacity. The winner can choose to upgrade their stateroom at 50% of the brochure upgrade rate (not applicable to A+ or Suites). Roundtrip airfare, transfers, on-board gratuities, insurance and any onboard expenditure, including discretionary gratuities, are at the expense of the winner. This prize has no cash value and is non-transferable. Standard Terms & Conditions apply. For full details visit amawaterways.co.uk

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 29

RUSSELL-COTES ART GALLERY & MUSEUM, BOURNEMOUTH

Isabel Codrington, The Kitchen, 1927, oil on canvas

Self Portrait, 1909, 98x108cm

© IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

A R T HI S T O R Y

John Nash, Oppy Wood, 1917, oil on canvas

Art between the wars The art historian, critic and biographer FRANCES SPALDING has written an edited extract from her new book, The Real and the Romantic: English art between two world wars, especially for Artists & Illustrators ▸

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 31

AR T HISTORY

T

32 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

COURTESY OSBORNE SAMUEL GALLERY, LONDON.

Cyril Power, The Merry go Round, 1930, linocut

Cyril Power, The Tube Station, 1932, linocut

OSBORNE SAMUEL GALLERY, LONDON

he short, concentrated period that separates the two world wars spans only two decades, yet its art is multifarious and arresting. It is also richly contrary. Staunch conservatism jostles with energetic revivalism; allusions to the classical past or the early Italian Renaissance align themselves with the pulse of the new; the pursuit of the modern and international is unexpectedly trumped by a return to native traditions and to the local and vernacular.

While major cities on the continent continued to act as incubators of modernism, London both attracted and repelled, releasing a whole cohort of students from the Royal College of Art in the mid-1920s who abandoned the city in favour of rural life and habits, including the making of gardens. At the same time, the English countryside takes on a distinctive character in the public mind, encouraging artists to seek fresh and original responses to landscape. And sculptors, inspired by art from distant countries and cultures, discover new solutions that break through the traditions and barriers that define the Western European tradition.

Yet the Great War had shorn the world of old certainties. The art world in particular at first felt decentred and directionless. Some artists were still at work on commissions given to them by the British War Artists Committee, creating some great images of war and its ravaged terrain. The finest is perhaps Paul Nash’s The Menin Road (1919).

Meanwhile the Spanish flu pandemic, thought to have been brought to Britain by soldiers returning from the trenches, accounted for further loss of life, causing 228,000 deaths, and more than 50 million worldwide. At a local level, it removed a founder member of the Camden Town Group, Harold Gilman, a much-respected figure and president of the London Group, a leading exhibiting society. It was partly the loss of Gilman that stirred Wyndham Lewis into action, and with the help of Edward McKnight Kauffer, he attempted to revive the avantgarde with the Group X exhibition. But it proved to be a damp squib.

A disappointing start also accompanied the Seven & Five Society’s first exhibition in 1920. The lack of a clear identity troubled this artists’ society during this period of retrenchment and recovery. But it did not fold, like Group X, but instead gradually rose to prominence. It used to be said that, although the 1920s began unpromisingly, they nevertheless prepared the way for the more progressive 1930s.

In recent times, however, taste has moved on, interests have broadened; the art of the

A R T HI S T O R Y

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM

Paul Nash, The Menin Road, 1918, oil on canvas

The art of the 1920s is now very much admired for its imaginative vitality

Gwen John, Portrait of a Girl in Grey, 1918-23, oil on canvas

SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART

1920s is now very much admired for its imaginative vitality. It is hard not to be drawn into Isabel Codrington’s The Kitchen (1927).

The objects on the kitchen table are painted in a realist style that echoes the Dutch still life painters of the 17th century, thereby setting up a sense of continuity. Yet we also sense in this picture a feeling of modernity. The woman seems to have momentarily turned her back on the task that lies ahead and instead pulls back the curtain to let in the wintry light which floods across the room and reifies the still life on the table. Yet there remains a sense of constriction and possibly a desire for escape. This quietly old-fashioned painting contains a tension that is modern.

We understand better nowadays why in the aftermath of war a return to Modernism felt inappropriate. The aggressive pursuit of the machine-age in the pre-1914 period seemed, in the 1920s, horribly predictive of industrial warfare, making further revolt against traditionalism undesirable in the wake of so much destruction. Instead a gentler, more humorous Modernism began to merge, such as can be found in the colour lithographs produced at the Grosvenor School in the late 1920s. In Cyril Power’s The Tube Station (1932) fragmentation is connected, not with violence and aggression, but the pleasures of modern life. Young artists also found ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 3 3

AR T HISTORY

TOWNER ART GALLERY, EASTBOURNE

COURTESY THE PIER ART CENTRE, STROMNESS, ORKNEY

Alfred Wallis, Three Ships and a Lighthouse, 1934-38, oil and pencil

a touchstone in the art of an untaught mariner, Alfred Wallis. His Three Ships and Lighthouse (c. 1934-38) shows how instinct and intuition can fashion immediacy, in such a way that affirmed artists in their need to break with the past. A wariness of modernity in the aftermath of war remained and was understandable. “To be modern”, warns Marshall Berman, “is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world — and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”

The title of my new book, The Real and the Romantic, recognises two recurrent tendencies within this period. They are different from each other but not necessarily oppositional. I wanted to avoid the more prescriptive stylistic labels, ‘Realism’ and ‘Romanticism’. ‘The real’ is instead a term often used by artists when referring to something actual, genuine, authentic and not merely imitative or artificial. Talk of ‘the real’ never became as fashionable as the phrase ‘significant form’, which Clive Bell coined in his book Art (1914) as that which gives rise to aesthetic emotion. Yet the notion of ‘the real’ 3 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

A work of art can communicate a sense of the real without employing realism is closely related to this, as it implies that for a work of art to succeed it must go deeper than a mere visual record. For the artist, as well as for the viewer, it is often experienced as a sudden feeling, a gift or a challenge.

A work of art can communicate a sense of the real without employing realism as its method of representation. Similarly, romantic feeling, during this period, is less related to a specific group of individuals or set of ideas than to a dominant mood or a shift in feeling. The romantic appeal of Christopher Wood’s PZ134 (1930) lies in the vitality of his response to the boat in the harbour and in the honesty and density of touch that is brought to his paint handling.

When brought together for the purposes of this book, the terms real and romantic may seem to sit at opposite ends of a scale, but in fact their relationship is more fluid that this, for each can tinge, colour or even merge with the other. As I have suggested the pursuit of the real is different to the pursuit of realism, but the latter is undeniably a dominant

thread during these two decades. From a psychological point of view, it suggests a widespread desire to counter the shattering experience of industrial warfare with a return to wholeness and continuity. Art that imitates life, that has a certain mastery of the external world, gives the viewer a comforting sense that we too can map and manage the environment. After so much destruction, realism was initially the language of reconstruction. But realism is also a multipurpose style: it can create a fixating stillness, sufficiently uncanny to invite comparison with Surrealist art. Or it can help still the subject and bring out the inner of the sitter, as in Gwen John’s Portrait of a Girl in Grey (c.1913-23).

The word ‘romantic’ is used as a loose, umbrella term, to suggest an emotional register that contrasts with the outwardly objective and dispassionate pursuit of realism. Romanticism is often associated with a lyric vein in English art and poetry, but it can also be tough and chilly. The

XXXXXXXXXXX Christopher Wood, Cornwall, 1930, oil on board

THE ESTATE OF ELWIN HAWTHORNE

Elwin Hawthorne, Cumberland Market, 1931, oil on board

romantic element in interwar art became visible long before Raymond Mortimer coined the term ‘Neo-Romantics’ in 1938, in connection with a group of artists united, not by style, politics and ideology, but more by a shared state of mind brought about by the threat and onset of war.

This book is neither a survey history of the period nor a deliberate alternative to mainstream history. It focuses instead on key moments, sudden alliances and shifts in feeling that fed into the creativity of the period. It points at the interconnectedness of artistic networks and brings to the fore a number of women artists. The kind of art history I enjoy most consorts with ideas, networks, collectives as well as individual artists and their relation to the wider cultural, social and political field. So much is packed into this short historic period that the need for selection has been inevitable. My main ambition has been to enhance understanding and enjoyment of this wide field.

The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars by Frances Spalding is published by Thames & Hudson on 26 May 2022, £35.00. thamesandhudson.com ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 3 5

TH E B I G I N T E R V I E W

ANDY WEEKES

Bruce McLean BRUCE MCLEAN is an award-winning Scottish sculptor,

painter and ceramicist. Niki Browes speaks to him ahead of a major new exhibition this summer

A

sculptor, performance artist, filmmaker and painter, Bruce McLean is one of the most important figures in British contemporary art today. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the early sixties, and from 1963 to 1966 at St. Martin’s School of Art, London, where he and others rebelled against what appeared to be the formalist academicism of his teachers. When he was offered an exhibition at the Tate Gallery, in 1972, he opted for a ‘retrospective’ he titled King for a Day which lasted only one day. From the mid-1970s, McLean has turned increasingly to painting/sculpture and film work.

In 1985, he won the John Moores Painting Prize for a painting he says took him “two minutes” to complete. Since retiring from his 36 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

professorship of painting at the Slade School of Art, he has been making increasingly large paintings and sculptural film works from his studios in West London and Menorca. This summer, Attenborough Arts Centre will present the most comprehensive exhibition of McLean’s Black Garden paintings. Never before shown as a collective in this way in the UK, the exhibition brings together a selection of paintings created over the last 15 years, including works never exhibited in public. Monumental in scale and with a dazzling use of colour - hot pinks, cobalt blues and deep oranges often compete against a dark background - the paintings hover somewhere between reality and abstraction with intriguing hints of pathways, ponds, flowers and shrubs. ▸

T HE B I G I NT E R V I E W

FUTURE GARDEN 6, 2020, Screenprint and acrylic, 152x152cm

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 37

T HE BIG INTERV I EW

Blue Garden, Malagarba, acrylic and oil, 88.6x78.7cm

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T HE B I G I NT E R V I E W

L E F T Future Gardens, 2020, screenprint and acrylic, 225x200cm A B OV E Fluorescent Freesias, 2009, acrylic and oil stick, 225x200cm B E L OW Green Garden, Malagarba, 2009, acrylic and oil, 225x200cm

My father was an architect and I grew up reading all of his books on sculpture and design. He wouldn’t let me follow in his footsteps because he said I was too small. It skipped a generation and now my son is an architect. He’s tall, thin and good looking with a big nose. He drinks a lot of whisky and eats a lot of food, just like my father. He’s the spitting image.

My dad used to go to work in the office on Saturday mornings and, from the age of six, he used to drop me off at the Glasgow School of Art for Saturday morning art classes. There was a very glamorous Spanish woman who wore a turban and had bright red lips who made us all paint to music on big bits of paper spread all over the floor. It wasn’t like at school where you’re stuck with one bit of A4 sugar paper and a broken pencil. I thought to myself, “Bloody hell, this is a bit more like it.” Then at the age of eight, I went to the

I love dancing and think painting a canvas is a very similar process class of Paul Zunterstein, who was a sculpture tutor. He was very sympathetic to me; he showed me all sorts of books on Constantin Brâncuși, Germaine Richier, Richard Stankiewicz and Alberto Giacometti. I was immersed in this world of sculpture and I thought it was fantastic.

He was a lovely man and really inspired me. I did his classes for nine years and it was brilliant.

Kids looking at their telephones all day is bloody disastrous. I once listened to an interview with Pete Burns from the pop band Dead or Alive and he said something that’s

really stuck with me. He said, “The trouble nowadays is that children aren’t bored anymore. It’s very, very important to be bored.” I’ve only ever been bored for five seconds because then I do something.

Boredom’s quite interesting, and it inspires a lot of stuff. It certainly makes me want to work.

I wanted to be a ballet dancer at one point; I figured I could be an ‘action sculptor’ and therefore wouldn’t have to buy any materials. I was too old at 21 to become a classical ballet dancer so I went to the Modern Dance School in Covent Garden but that really wasn’t my scene. But I love dancing and think painting a canvas is a very similar process. I won the John Moore’s Painting Prize in 1985 for a painting called Oriental Garden, Kyoto. I painted it in one hit by moving around the canvas. It took about two minutes and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever made. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 39

THE BIG INTERVI EW

L E F T Tangerine Test, 2009, acrylic and oil, 225x200cm A B OV E Red Path, 2008, acrylic and oil, 225x200cm B E L OW Carole’s Garden Devon, 2008, acrylic and oil, 225x200cm

The Black Garden paintings are inspired by our garden in Menorca, which is like a moving sculpture. We’ve had the house since 1988 and I’ve always sketched and photographed the outside area. It’s not very big but there are palm trees, bamboo, lemon trees, bougainvillea, jasmine and yuccas; all plants that can survive without much water. Rosie, my wife, lets it change throughout the seasons and it’s a bit like a controlled jungle. Around 2006, I started making what I call these ‘garden paintings’ in oil and acrylic. But I don’t actually make paintings of the garden as such; my work is influenced by it but it’s not dictated by it.

I like to paint on a large scale because I don’t want my work to look like objects. I suppose what I’m trying to do with the paintings is make sculptures of them. These things are big enough that, if you’re stood in front of the painting, you can almost immerse yourself in it. The size makes them much more physical.

40 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

I think of myself as a sculptor, not as someone who just applies paint The garden paintings take three or four days to complete. I’ve slowed down a lot, painting wise. Not just because I’m getting old, but I’ve started revising stuff. I used to like painting in one hit, completing paintings in three or four minutes, but that’s getting harder to do – getting it right first time – especially when they’re this size.

I’ve also been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which doesn’t help matters. But there are about 150 canvasses in total, some of which my wife likes, some she doesn’t!

The garden paintings are paintings made by a sculptor. I’ve circumnavigated it by trying to establish what sculpture is – and it can be whatever I say it is. Matisse

was a better sculptor than he was a painter in my opinion. I like the illusion of colour in space.

I think of myself as a sculptor, not as someone who just applies paint. Everything I’ve ever made – whether that be a watercolour painting, a film or a song – I consider to be sculpture.

I had to give up my studio in West London because I can no longer drive.

But I’ve got a studio in the garden which works very well. In the last month alone, I’ve made about 25 paintings. I thought the work kept me young until I got Parkinson’s and now I’m a crumbly old bugger!

Do I feel like I’ve got nothing left to prove? I’ve got a lot left to bloody prove! I’ve done a lot of things that I wanted to do and then there are some things that I haven’t quite achieved. I’ll keep going for as long as I can.

The Black Garden Paintings exhibition is on from 25 June to 11 September at the Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester. For more information, visit: attenborougharts.com ▫

Future Gardens, 2020, screenprint and acrylic, 152x120cm

T HE B I G I NT E R V I E W

O R AL HISTORY Jean-Michel Basquiet, 1986, Milan © Jean Kallina

In an edited extract from a new book on JEAN - MICHEL BASQUIAT, we hear

from those who knew him best: his sisters Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux

Ba

Untitled (Thor), 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 121.92×121.92cm

O R A L HI S T O R Y

squiat ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 4 3

O R AL HISTORY

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O R A L HI S T O R Y LISANE: My brother was born in Brooklyn

on Thursday, December 22 1960, to a Haitian father and a Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican mother. He entered the world less than two months after Cassius Clay made his professional boxing debut in a six-round decision over Tunney Hunsaker, within weeks of John F. Kennedy being elected president of the United States, and at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The year 1960 was also referred to as the “Year of Africa”, a time of declared independence for 17 countries across the continent that by the year’s end had all joined the United Nations, evidence of the increased focus on PanAfricanism. These are among the many topics that fuelled my brother’s work.

JEANINE: Cartoon characters can be found throughout Jean-Michel’s work, many of which are reminiscent of the ones we watched every Saturday morning as children. Jean-Michel’s characters and penchant for satire bring back memories of the playfulness of our childhood – giggling over cartoons, dancing and wrestling around our home, playing freezetag and merciless games of punch-car in the back seat of our car during long drives.

LISANE: As kids, we were surrounded by family, great food, amazing music, art, culture, and gorgeous brownstones, all while we watched the adults in our lives trying to figure things out.

LISANE: Jean-Michel struggled a lot in school. It’s hard to imagine someone carrying that kind of energy within their soul and not knowing what to do with it, or not having anyone around who really understood it. That was very, very difficult for Jean-Michel. After going to several schools, Jean-Michel wound up at City-As-School. Jean-Michel excelled there and seeing the work he did on the school’s newsletter felt good; it provided an outlet and structure for his creativity as well as an opportunity to express himself.

LISANE: Jean-Michel ran away a few times.

One day he was there, and then one day he wasn’t; there was really no discussion about it. Jean-Michel was never going to conform to the vision my father, Gerard, had for his life. Eventually, there was more clarity about the fact that Jean-Michel was officially leaving home. I was very sad. I loved my brother; Jeanine and I were very close, and Jean-Michel and I were very close. It was hard not having him home, though I understood. It was just very difficult not having him be part of our lives every day.

LISANE: There was no visible evidence that Jean-Michel’s master plan to be the greatest painter made any sense at all. Papa saw

O P P O S I T E PAG E Charles the First, 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 198.12×157.48cm L E F T Untitled, 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 121.92×75.62cm A B OV E Untitled (Sugar Ray), 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 109.22×226.70 cm

Jean-Michel wanted our father to believe that he knew what he was doing Jean-Michel’s smoking weed, floundering, hanging out and couch surfing as things that took him away from that path. He simply did not have evidence that Jean-Michel’s approach would work. Jean-Michel wanted our father to believe that he knew what he was doing. Our dad was afraid for him and wanted to help. It was terrible for them both, but I believe they were getting to a place of mutual understanding. Eventually, of course, my father got to see Jean-Michel

realise many of his dreams: he had gallery and museum shows, collectors clamouring for the work, and the critical acclaim that was so important to him.

LISANE: Jean-Michel’s success was a double-edged sword. He felt quite a bit of pressure. He was so ahead of his time, and he was also very young. There was money involved, and so much recognition; things many people aspire to. He had surpassed many of the folks that he started the journey with, in terms of his success. They were still friends, but his life and what he was dealing with was different from their reality. In spite of that success, though, he was still seen as “the other” by the art world establishment; he didn’t fit in anywhere, really. Being put into a position of having to constantly correct how people saw him deeply annoyed Jean-Michel. He wanted to be seen as an artist, first and foremost, and to have that conversation. It frustrated him to defend himself against people’s prejudices, stereotypes and assumptions. Jean-Michel was on a journey to figure out where he belonged and what he was going to do with his particular set of circumstances, while continuing to grow and develop his work.

JEANINE: I remember the night that the family met Madonna. It was the only time I saw her. We went to dinner at the restaurant One Fifth Avenue. Jean-Michel introduced his girlfriend, “This is Madonna. She has a song out right now.” I had no idea who she was but he showed us her first single, Everybody. After dinner we went to his loft on Crosby Street. While we were there, Madonna asked if I knew how to do a popular dance because I was a teenager.

I showed her how to do “the Webo.”

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 45

O R AL HISTORY

Jailbirds, 1983, acrylic and oil stick, 165.1x229.87cm

LISANE: The words and phrases that feature

so prominently in much of his work were also essential in conveying meaning. His method of crossing out words is wholly unique; it’s genius. With words and phrases either partially covered up or almost completely obscured, the gesture invites the viewer to ask, “Why? To draw more attention to the words underneath? To negate them entirely?” Jean-Michel’s paintings are not about leading viewers to appreciate their beauty. They are about pushing the viewer to learn more.

JEANINE: Upon entering Jean-Michel’s studio, the first thing you noticed to the right was an incredibly long dining table that easily sat 10 to 12 people. Jean-Michel loved entertaining and great food. Dean & DeLuca was a gourmet market that he frequented and, when visiting him, food from the local shop would usually be laid out on the table. We would sit around that table and talk, but the painting never stopped.

Mid-conversation, he would hop up, paint something, come back and sit down.

LISANE: He’d always wanted to meet Andy Warhol and, of course, he made it happen.

People have said that Andy was a father figure to Jean-Michel. I suppose that is a convenient assumption, given the difference in their age, but Jean-Michel had a father.

I don’t think he was looking for one.

Jean-Michel and Andy developed a mutual admiration, respect and friendship for one another. People can do that at any age. They seemed to inspire and encourage each other.

They were friends who entered each other’s lives at a time when Jean-Michel probably needed mentorship and friendship with someone who wasn’t going to want anything from him and whom he could trust.

46 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

He needed people around him who understood the place he was in and the significance of the trajectory he was on.

Andy was one of very few who truly understood, first-hand, the enormity of what Jean-Michel was facing in his career. When Andy passed, Jean-Michel was deeply hurt.

JEANINE: We Basquiats love to party. In 1985, Jean-Michel had a 25th birthday party at Area, one of the most popular nightclubs at the time. Jean-Michel was DJing and our family was there: Papa, (step-mother) Nora, Lisane, my childhood friend Cherita, and our

Jean-Michel and Andy [Warhol] developed a mutual friendship for one another cousins Theresa and Reuben. We all danced and people-watched the entire night.

LISANE: I remember being excited about the number of people who were there for him and how very theatrical and creative the party was. It was clearly a party for the “in” crowd, and I was thrilled to be there. It was a beautiful celebration in his honour and it felt profound. Jean-Michel was partying, DJing, celebrating. I remember how impressed my father was; he was happy. It was badass, just a fabulous party.

JEANINE: When asked what his subject matter was in a 1983 interview, Jean-Michel answered, “Royalty, heroism, and the streets.” He was speaking about how he would like to see Black people portrayed in

America. My brother was critical of how they were depicted on TV, in film and in the arts, despite our tremendous contributions in those arenas and American culture generally. Black people were more often than not portrayed as the help, as thieves, gang members, pimps, prostitutes; either as something negative or insignificant. He painted his pantheon of Black heroes as royalty. That is why there are crowns throughout his work. And this treatment extends to paintings of street artists as well.

Knowing Jean-Michel, it seems clear this was the message he was trying to convey.

JEANINE: The last two years of JeanMichel’s life were difficult, and it seemed clear he was going through a depression. We spoke and I visited him, but it was definitely more infrequent. My brother was always aware of his Blackness as he navigated New York City, whether being racially profiled or chastised for how he dressed or wore his hair. He always had a hard time catching a cab as a Black man, so he resorted to riding a bike to get around the city. All of it wore him down. I was 21 when Jean-Michel passed away. I’ll never forget – it was a Friday night.

I was driving home from Lisane’s apartment.

My phone was ringing as I was walking in the door. My dad was on the line, “He’s gone.” “What?” “Jean-Michel, he’s gone. He’s dead.” I can still hear myself screaming. I barely heard my father, but he said JeanMichel had overdosed. That was the first death I had experienced of a close relative.

It devastated me. I went back to Lisane’s house to decide how we were going to tell our mother. And at three in the morning, we woke her to say her son was gone.

LISANE: My brother’s death took its toll on our family – excruciating for all of us collectively and individually. We lost a part of ourselves when he left this earth. The world continues to be very excited about Jean-Michel. He was incredible, and we are so very proud of what he did and for the impact his life and work has had on popular culture and the art world. What is important for everyone to understand, though, is that he was a son, and a brother, and a grandson, and a nephew, and a cousin, and a friend. He was all of that in addition to being a ground-breaking artist.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure by the family of Jean-Michel Basquiat - Lisane Basquiat, Jeanine Heriveaux and Nora Fitzpatrick - is published by Rizzoli Electa priced £39.95 and is available wherever books are sold. The exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure© is now open at the StarrettLehigh Building in NYC.

O R A L HI S T O R Y

A B OV E Jawbone of an Ass, 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 1 152.4×213.36cm B E L OW Untitled, Cowboy and Indian, 1982, acrylic and oil stick, 127×266.7cm

A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S 47

Pandemic painting RETROSP ECTIVE

IAN BECK is one of the

UK’s most celebrated authors and illustrators, famously known for illustrating Sir Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album cover.

Here he tells us what living in lockdown taught him about how he saw his neighbourhood with fresh eyes

M

onths before Covid hit, I was asked by Iris Weaver of the Fry Gallery in Saffron Walden to select a piece of work from their collection. Iris suggested that I might make a work of my own to echo, reflect or celebrate the chosen piece. I painted a watercolour from the point of view of my studio. Making the painting proved to be a kind of turning point for me. I had spent most of that month and the previous year working on a large and delightfully arcane project with and for the author Philip Pullman.

Simply making a painting of my house in the late afternoon light proved both refreshing and salutary. It really was possible after all to make a satisfying picture of something for its own sake, something I had done very little of since the heady days of art college in the 1960s. ▸ 48 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Modernist House, St Margarets, watercolour, 27x39cm

A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S 49

RETROSP ECTIVE

Back of house, early morning summer, watercolour, 19x29cm

I was happy with the resulting painting and the making of it, and I looked forward to making more in that vein. Then the pandemic struck. Lockdown followed and we were all suddenly confined to barracks.

Luckily, the spring of 2020 proved to be a particularly spectacular one. As usual I took my dog, a greyhound called Gracie, out at the crack of dawn every morning. In the summer months she would be restless at 5.30am and more than ready to go down to the Thames at Richmond Lock, close to where we live. One bright day I took her out and she pulled me in the opposite direction to that usual route. She led me across a 50 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

Back of house, tree shadow, watercolour, 24x29cm

footbridge over the River Crane in Isleworth.

I noticed at once the effect of the morning light. It struck a group of mature trees planted at the corner of a junction of two crossing streets. The trees had been planted by the enlightened local authority at the same time that the houses were built, sometime in the 1920s. I was struck by the warm colour that the light gave to the trunks and branches. There was a haze effect made by the fresh leaf buds and there was an almost golden light beyond in the distance. I made a painting of the trees and of the houses grouped nearby, which I enjoyed making as much as the previous

The amplified birds reminded me, albeit at first unconsciously, of my childhood watercolour. After that I just kept going.

The lockdown had temporarily stopped much of the aircraft traffic. Not since the Icelandic volcano had we experienced such an eerie silence in the sky. The flight paths

Isleworth, early summer,, pen and wash, 16x17cm

Wolf Moon, watercolour, 26x38cm

Chiswick House Gatehouse, watercolour, 24x31cm

to Heathrow pass over the area, and I had lived with the noise for over 30 years and grown entirely used to it. Its sudden absence had its own unexpected effect. The total quiet meant that birdsong was suddenly the soundtrack to our walks. The absence of aircraft noise and the now amplified birds reminded me, albeit at first subconsciously, of my childhood. Something stirred – a remembrance of that kind of light and those far-off times – as I painted.

I grew up by the sea in Hove, Sussex. The clarity of the light in the spring of 2020 had, at times, a real sense of the clear dazzling quality of seaside light. One morning ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 51

H OW I WORK HOW I P A I N T

Alleyway Beside Pitt Park, watercolour, 23x31cm

Jug decorated

by Katherine Church, watercolour, 39x27cm

White House, early morning summer, watercolour, 31x27cm

H O W I W O R K HO W I PA I NT

Autumn Mist, Isleworth, watercolour, 27x37cm

I noticed a house at the end of our street.

Unlike the other houses, which were mainly built of London stock, this one was stuccoed and painted white. The sunlight bisected the house with vivid shadows. It had been transfigured by sunlight and become a seaside house, white against an intense spring sky.The 1920s houses over the footbridge in Isleworth reminded me of the estates I walked through on my way to and from school. I now walked the dog on the Isleworth route every morning. There was a growing, sentimental effect of homecoming about it all.

I carried on making the paintings for myself. I painted the back of my house in various lights and times of day throughout the year. I also painted parts of the surrounding areas of Isleworth too. The dog liked going to a rather ragged park beside the River Crane. When we first moved to the area in the late 1980s the children used to play football there. It was known as ‘the Rec’.

It had recently been officially named Pitt Park and was in the process of becoming a nature reserve. An alley ran beside the little park, bordered by a patchwork of varied semi-distressed fences. The gardens of the

My daily dog walks had a growing, sentimental effect of homecoming parallel street backed onto the alley with their sheds and outbuildings. Wild roses climbed over the fencing and great shrubs of buddleia sprouted and mingled with the mature trees. There was an almost green tunnel effect in summer and I noticed shafts of light that would catch on individual blooms and leaves.

I painted and drew the alleyway more than once. In spring, there were glimpses of apple blossom over the fences whilst at night the blossom was lit by open windows. In the early summer there were spectacular early-morning lozenges of light on the creosoted fences. In the autumn, a virginia creeper which grew up through a tree spilled and cascaded down onto the pathway. There was an added factor: the smells of childhood

were suddenly present. In the summer, they lurked in the unchecked and neglected vegetation sprouting around the fences, and the heat released other smells locked up in the treated wood and shed coverings. It became emotional in some deep buried way.

The more paintings I made, the more I realised I was touching a similar nerve in others. When I first put some of the finished paintings on social media I had very positive responses, something I hadn’t expected.

After I posted some of the paintings made during the early chill mists and fogs in November, messages were sent saying how it reminded some of waiting for the bus to school on a winter morning.

By the end of 2020 I had 60 or more finished works. Most were in watercolour on paper heightened with body colour.

Although more than a year had passed since I made the first painting, I continued to paint and record my surroundings. All in all this collection of paintings is more of a starting point than a finish.

The Light in Suburbia by Ian Beck is published

by Unbound for £25. Available to buy at unbound.com/books/the-light-in-suburbia ▫ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 5 3

IN -DEP TH

Life drawing IN OIL PASTEL

In his final instalment of life drawing with pastels, JAKE SPICER shows you how to work with a pastel that’s more like paint: the oil pastel

I

n this final instalment of our life drawing in pastel series, we tackle the odd one out: oil pastel. Where most other pastel media are dry and blend easily with powdery charcoal or chalk, oil pastels are predictably oily and behave as much like a paint as a pastel. Oil pastels, and their larger cousins, oil bars, are an evolution of children’s wax crayons. While several manufacturers claim to have invented them at various points in the last 100 years, they are an undeniably young medium. Their invention is indicative of how modern artists of the early- to mid-20th Century were eschewing traditional media in favour of more experimental tools and of how

5 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

developments in chemistry and manufacturing helped the makers of artists’ materials keep up with that demand.

In this article I’ll look at a few ways you can improve your oil pastel technique; they can be challenging to use, but they reward perseverance. Most people are put off using oil pastels by bad experiences with cheap, hard, low pigment materials so, to start with, get hold of some good quality oil pastels; I’ve used Sennelier for this article. It is also important not to use oil pastels in the same way as you’d use soft pastels, but to treat them more like a paint in stick form, with the right supports and mediums. jakespicerart.co.uk ▸

I N-DE PT H

Advice for working in oil pastel 1 BLEND IT WITH PAINTING MEDIUMS

Oil pastel is made from similar ingredients to oil paint and good quality pastels can be thinned with the same solvents and mediums. Rather than smudging in the way that you might with soft pastels, you can use solvents like Sansodor, turps or Zest-It to liquify the pastel on a primed surface or add drying oils to make it behave in a more painterly way. It can even be combined with oil paint in a mixed media piece.

SUPPORTS & FIXATIVES The natural stickiness of oil pastel will help it adhere to most surfaces, making it ideal to use on unconventional supports like cardboard, metal, wood or stone. On paper it will pick up the texture of the surface and is best applied to a heavier paper so that the pressure required to make a mark doesn’t tear the support. If you plan to scrape the surface back, the paper texture will appear more pronounced.

Additionally, if you intend to use a solvent or painting medium with the pastels, you’ll first need to prime the surface with gesso.

Oil pastel remains pliable after being applied and it is best to store drawings separately or within mounts that stop them touching and sticking to one another. I wouldn’t advise using oil pastels in a sketchbook, but if you do, slip a piece of greaseproof paper between the pages to protect them. Oil pastel doesn’t harden as much as oil paint, and while the surface may become firmer with time, it will not have the resilience of a painted surface; some art material suppliers sell specialist oil pastel fixative which will help protect your drawing, but it isn’t a critical necessity.

Oil pastel on smooth, unprimed paper and on textured oil painting paper 56 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

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IN -DEP TH 2 SCRAPE BACK

Used on its own, oil pastel has a waxy texture and you’ll find that repeated marks will drag the medium into bobbles on the surface of the support. While the pastel can’t easily be erased, it can be scraped back and you can use a palette knife or razor blade to carefully take off the top layer of pastel, leaving a thin layer behind as a ground for further mark-making. On a sufficiently durable support you can even use a sharp implement to scratch back into the drawing to reveal the ground below.

3 EMBRACE DRAWN MARKS

While oil pastel is a painterly medium, it is still predominantly a drawing tool.

Embrace the duality of the medium, using it to build up painterly layers in some places and to make more draftsmanly marks in others. Explore how varying your pressure will create a variety of line weights and how rolling your pastel onto its broad edge can push that variety even further.

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4 MAINTAIN YOUR PASTELS

As they leave so much of themselves behind with every mark, oil pastels wear down quickly and it is a good idea to keep a stock of your favourite colours to hand to avoid running out at a critical moment. The pastels become softer in warm weather, with the warmth of your hand weakening the sticks over the course of a drawing. To keep them firm, put the pastels in the fridge between drawings and support the paper sheath by wrapping it around with masking tape. While they can’t be sharpened, you’ll want to keep some scrap paper nearby so that you can rub the pastel tip on it, shaping and cleaning it at the same time.

I N-DE PT H

Exercise

Stage 1: Midtone shapes To help simplify the tonal values of the model you might want to unfocus your eyes, squint or, if you’re short sighted like me, take off your glasses. Hold the pastel end-on and block in the midtones of the figure in front of you, leaving the lightest and darkest areas of the body blank.

TONAL SHAPES

Sticky oil pastels don’t lend themselves to fast mark making in the same way that chalky pastels do. In this exercise you’ll need to work with the inclinations of the medium and slow down your looking by making deliberate marks that respond to observations of tonal shapes in the figure.

Oil pastels don’t mix easily, so you’ll often need to select equivalents for the colours you see in the model from the set of pastels that you have to hand. For this exercise select dark, midtone and light pastels from your set and work on white paper.

Stage 2: Light shapes Letting the white of the paper stand in for the very lightest highlights, use your lighter medium to block in the light midtones. Remain aware of the negative spaces around the figure as you draw, seeing each shape as a puzzle piece that fits together with other shapes to make up the whole figure.

Stage 3: Dark shapes Finally, look for the darkest darks in the figure.

Keep a clear distinction between different tonal shapes and don’t be tempted to blend transitions between areas of different tonal values – this exercise is all about trying to see distinct shapes of tone. Here, blocking in the larger area of the hair gave my pastel a sharper edge, which I could then use for the slim, dark occlusion shadows of surfaces that press together.

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 59

IMPROVE YOUR LANDSCAPE PAINTING

Colour notes Part three of five

In this third article, ANN WITHERIDGE shows you how to push colour and create colour notes within your landscapes

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In the first two articles in this series, we discussed composition and colour harmony, looking for the beauty in the landscape through its simple forms, value patterns and then reducing colour to harmonies.

In this article we are going to push colour. The shapes and value patterns are still the underlying structure of the painting but again, rather than looking for accents and details, we are going to see if the painting works as a series of colour patterns within their correct shape and value. These

SERIES ANN' S MATERIALS Panel Canvas or gessoed wood, approx 8x6” and 6x4”.

Working on small boards allows us to work quickly and forces us to simplify.

Linseed oil and turpentine We use turpentine sparingly at the start so that it can quickly evaporate and this allows us to tone the panel. Use the linseed oil as the medium or the vehicle to help move the paint around the panel.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF ART

Brushes 3x size 6 filbert, 1x size 2 round. You can work with any brushes. Filberts are the most traditional and I also like to use rounds. For the hair I like a mixture of hogs and synthetic brushes (ivory). I think it is best to work with bigger brushes so we are less able to go into detail. You can have a small brush for the accents at the end; I use one brush for the accents and clean it with kitchen roll as I work.

exercises are to help us understand that it is not the detail that makes a painting work but the big and simple compositional choices; firstly through values, then colour harmony and now colour balances.

We are not looking for the subtlety of values or colour variations, but reducing them to their largest forms. I think what we find most difficult about a landscape is to reduce the information. In the studio, we are in an organised environment, with controlled light. We can create the ideal set up with our subject matter,

taking it all in with one glance.

Conversely, with a landscape we see the world before us and we have to select what works compositionally, and how to simplify and be selective with subject matter, values and colours. This is the key to landscape painting.

As an exercise, when looking at old master landscape paintings you are drawn to, rather than seeing how much they have put in, imagine how much they have left out. Think about what they are showing us and consider how have they been selective.

In article two, we saw how the Barbizon school and the Tonalists reduced colour variety.

After this, the Impressionists – as in this painting, The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias), 1873,

by Claude Monet – used myriad colours, which seem to supersede subject matter; they were thinking about the effect of light and our perception of colour relationships. At the time this seemed so radical and yet it’s now so natural to us. The Fauvists take this even further, amplifying the colours and simplifing the subject matter. ▸

Oil paints Any combination of colours can work and it is good to work with what you are accustomed to; it is really about how we mix colours rather than the specific colour, as there are endless possibilities of what we can mix with a limited range of colours.

I like to have a warm and cold of each primary colour (blue, red, yellow) and a white. For these exercises I am going to reduce my palette: Ultramarine Blue Cadmium Red Light Cadmium Yellow Light Yellow Ochre Titanium White

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 61

Tips on how to do colour note studies EXERCISES

• You might find it easier to first copy some paintings but only allow yourself to say the painting in six brushstrokes of different colours.

• Look at your landscape in front of you and do the same when choosing what to paint.

• Tone your panel with a very thin layer of Cadmium Red Light.

• Do the drawing in a neutral tone, perhaps Ultramarine Blue and a little red.

• Block in the darks of the value pattern lightly with the same colours. Work lightly with your value patterns so that you feel comfortable that it works both in terms of design and values.

Now mix the paints on your palette to create the patterns.

I would suggest spending time on your palette rather than on the canvas, creating nice buttery mounds of colour.

In this first one I have created three colour mixes which are also three separate values.

Each mix has Ultramarine Blue in it which helps keep the painting harmonised: 1 The sky and light of the water: Titanium White and Ultramarine Blue 2 The shadow pattern: Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Red Light 3 The lights of the trees and reflection in the water: Ultramarine Blue and Cadmium Yellow Light

In the more developed painting, I have still kept my shadow colours as red and blue and my sky is simple, but I have graded the value in the sky and added a little yellow to soften. It is in the lights on the trees that I have varied the greens.

I have still only used Ultramarine Blue but have used Cadmium Red Light and both Cadmium Yellow Light and Yellow Ochre. I have also used my round brush to create some more accents.

In this painting I have kept to the same composition in the colour note study, and added extra accents and a little red buoy, which I pulled over from the right of the picture plane as it added a fun colour note.

AT THE SE ASIDE , OIL ON CANVAS, 1892 , 50.8X86. 4CM,

We can often see how artists are using and pushing colour for painting effects.

In this painting by William Merritt Chase, he has really played with the colour notes.

I wonder if the umbrellas were really red and yellow, or if he painted them like this to balance with the blues. The clothing of the people enjoying the beach are also white, to balance with the clouds with accents of yellow and red like the umbrellas. He has simplified the colour palette to the three primary colours, so evenly balanced.

62 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

In these two landscape studies I have kept my colour palette really simple.

Firstly I toned my canvas very lightly with Cadmium Red, this allows a soft warmth to come through and balances well with the blues and greens we see in a landscape.

SERIES In the first painting I have done a small colour sketch using blue, two yellows and white.

This is very much a tonal painting of greens, stepping into colour. I have added a little yellow to the sky so that the subtle green moves all around the painting.

I started with a red tone and red and blue with the drawing and value pattern. This takes very little time but is an important part of the painting, akin to the drawings we did in the first article.

I have shifted the second painting and done a much blockier start with stronger clearer colour shapes.

Ann Witheridge teaches landscape painting at London Fine Art Studios. londonfineartstudios.com ▫

NEXT MONTH Painting skies

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 6 3

MASTERCL ASS

Living for the city During the pandemic, online art teacher CHRISTOPHER PAUL STEVENS started to make

his oil paintings on a much smaller scale. Here’s a demonstration from a street scene in New York

W

hen Covid-19 hit, the galleries where my paintings were displayed closed and I was forced to look for new ways to sell my work. I began to focus on social media and direct sales to my followers. The best way I could think to do this was to work at a much smaller scale. The guidelines that I set for myself were that the work could easily be shipped safely at a fair rate, had a price point accessible to most people and was a standard size. Ultimately what worked best was a scale of 13cm by 18cm. This would allow me to complete a piece quickly, which reduced costs to the buyer, would fit into a standard bubble-lined envelope securely with cardboard protectors over the front of the painting, and was at a scale where I could still be detail oriented.

6 4 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

ORIGINAL I M AG E

CHRISTOPHER' S MATERIALS Classic cotton canvas 13x18cm Paint Liquitex acrylic: Raw Sienna (for underpainting) Winsor & Newton Oils: Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Phthalo Blue, Van Dyke Brown, Phthalo Turquoise Brushes Princeton short liner 10/0, Princeton liner 10/0, Princeton 2/0, Princeton 0, Princeton 10, Gamvar varnish brush Mechanical pencil for drawing grid lines Mahl stick Speedball odourless paint thinner Houston Art boiled linseed oil Gamvar Gloss varnish

1

1

C AP TURING THE IMAGE The image that I chose for this project is one that I photographed with my smartphone while walking through New York City. The best advice I can give when looking for subject matter is to take a walk around town, be observational and try to find beauty in the ordinary. ▸

MAS T E R CL AS S

2

MAS T E R CL AS S 3

2

DR AWING THE FIRST GRID Once I’m back in my studio I print out my source image, in black and white, at the same size of 13x18cm. Using either a mechanical pencil or Photoshop, I draw horizontal and vertical lines onto the printout, 1.3cm apart. The grid divides the original image into smaller blocks so that I can more easily see what belongs where.

4

5

DR AWING THE SECOND GRID Next, I grab my pre-stretched, pre-gessoed 13x18cm canvas with a stretcher bar width of 2cm. I then repeat the same process as in step 1. Using a mechanical pencil, I draw horizontal and vertical lines onto the blank canvas, 1.3cm apart.

3

4

TR ANSFERING THE IMAGE I then transfer what I see in the reference photo, block by block, onto the canvas, focusing on getting the placement of each line just right. I’ll continue in this manner until all the squares are done and the image is completely transferred. By focusing on one square at a time I end up drawing what I see and not what I think I see.

TONING THE C ANVAS Once my drawing is completely transferred, I then tone the canvas with a Raw Sienna acrylic. You can tone your canvas using any colour and value you like. Traditional base colours include Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna or Raw Sienna; all three are highly recommended for beginners due to their versatility. Cover the surface completely with a brush or paper towel and don’t worry too much about the colour or look of the brushstrokes. The paint does not need to be evenly blended. Irregularity and variety in your paint strokes and thickness will add visual interest to the finished piece. ▸

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ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 67

6

BLOC KING IN I always like to start at a section that takes up a lot of space and that I can fill in quickly. Usually, that’s the sky and so that’s where I started here. I then fill in shapes based on scale (largest to smallest), and difficulty (easiest to hardest). I am not concerning myself with any details just yet. I also focus on my colour choices during this stage. I will match as best I can the colours I see in my reference photo to those I apply to the canvas. Keep in mind that some colours cannot be mixed. They can only be achieved in the layering and glazing stage.

6

DETAILS Once the surface is dry to the touch, I then go in and add all the little details. This includes bricks, window frames, curtains, the ribs on the water towers, fire escapes etc. I use a mahl stick to paint straight lines. I will hold the mahl stick in the direction of the line I wish to paint.

I will then lay my brush handle onto the mahl stick and slowly move the brush tip to the surface of the canvas. I then slide the brush handle across the mahl stick with even pressure to create a smooth, thin, straight line.

7

68 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

6

7

MAS T E R CL AS S 8

9

VARNISH Finally, I add a matte varnish to protect the work. Follow any instructions on your varnish bottle. Get a clean, wide brush - I recommend you use a brush specifically for varnishing. You want to achieve a look that has no visible brush strokes. Pour varnish into a shallow dish. It is easier to control the amount of varnish on your brush this way. Lay your work on newspaper or cardboard; you are bound to get some drips. Apply in long, even strokes from side to side, left to right, slightly overlapping each stroke to cover the surface. Then work from the top to bottom while moving from one side to the other. You are aiming to have no visible brush marks. After varnishing, cover the painting with a board slightly larger than the canvas, resting it on props so it hovers and reduces the amount of dust that could fall on the wet varnish layer. At a minimum, I will apply two coats of varnish with a 24-hour drying period between coats.

9

GL A ZING AND L AY ERING After all the details have been added I start the glazing/layering stage.

Almost everything in this painting was glazed over at least once. Areas in the sun were glazed with higher vibrancy warm colours. Paintings with multiple layers of glaze will appear to have an inner glow. Glazing also works to increase the depth of shadows, as areas will appear darker with each additional layer. In this painting, they were applied to the curtains, under the window ledges and behind the stairwells. Apply the layer of glaze to the dried underpainting with a soft brush. The glaze should be spread thinly across the surface so that it seems barely there. If you feel like you’ve added too much to your piece, you can dab away some of the paint with a cloth. You may find that you add tens of layers on top of one another, or just a few. Remember to adhere to the fat over lean rule when glazing.

8

For more information on Christopher and his online courses visit: domestika.org/en/ courses/3429-introduction-to-photorealismfor-oil-painting/cpsteven ▫

Readers get an exclusive 10% discount for one of Christopher’s online courses. At checkout, apply CPSTEVEN-AI into the discount box to redeem.

Valid for 30 days

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 69

Coloured pencil pooch LAURA RYAN combines her work as a heraldic

artist with skills learnt in her life drawing practice to create this dog in an unusual colour palette L AURA' S MATERIALS

Derwent Pro Colour coloured pencils in: Magenta 21, Blue Violet Lake 28, Dark Violet 27 and Deep Chrome 09.

225gsm Imitation Japanese Vellum (I get mine from Lawrence’s for 75p a sheet) Eraser Tablet or screen to draw from Black and white print out of an image Tombow Monozero eraser pen

70 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

M

aking a drawing of your beloved dog or pet is a great way to really appreciate their beauty and capture their expressive nature and personality. In my work as a heraldic artist, I often draw and paint very stylized animals and dogs in coats of arms whilst, in my life drawing practice, I use coloured pencils and unusual colour palettes. So, in this article I’ll demonstrate my approach to drawing Kiki the rescue dog. Even though Kiki is brown and white, I’ll be using a bright orange, a magenta and violets to describe her. The focus in this step-bystep tutorial will be on capturing a likeness with close attention to tonal accuracy, exploring a bright colour palette, which can be adapted for all colours and tones of furry friends. lauraryan.co.uk ▸

S T E P-BY-S T E P

ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 1

STEP -BY-STEP

1

WARMING UP Begin with a warm-up exercise. Set a timer for 10 minutes on each drawing, making a series of initial studies of your pet from different angles, and fill up a page. If your pet is mostly sleepy and still you could work from life, alternatively on-screen photos work great too. Treat the warm-up as an opportunity to try out and combine colours.

Opposite hues look very interesting together.

7 2 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

2

OUTLINE Now it’s time to move on to the main drawing. Use a fresh sheet of Japanese paper, working from an A4 black and white photo reference. Use Magenta to establish the main shapes.

Aim for an outline or silhouette which is undetailed but fairly accurate, placing the torso, head position and limbs.

3

TONAL CONTR AST Squint your eyes and look at the print out. Consider which areas are the lightest lights. On the drawing these shapes should be white, ie: blank paper. Shade everywhere else in a layer of tone using Blue Violet Lake, a light violet which is forgiving and can be easily rubbed out. Deep Chrome has been used last over the violet in areas which appear brown and warm.

4

BUILDING UP TONE Next, use the Magenta to build up tone, working across the entire drawing, aiming for even and untextured shading. Use the eraser very lightly across the whole surface of the drawing fairly regularly. This helps blend and smooth everything together. The use of Magenta all over will also help to unify the drawing.

Don’t press really hard just yet, but establish mid tones and dark shapes. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 3

5

FUR TEX TURE S Having built up a base layer of tone which is smooth and even, it’s now time to consider fur texture.

Use a very sharp Magenta pencil to draw directional and energetic marks. Pay close attention to how the fur is behaving. Add details to clumps of fur which seem important, but don’t over labour at this stage.

6

LIFELIKE FE ATURE S My advice for drawing the eyes is to work up to and around them at first and then, at this stage, you can make a couple of dark marks for the darks in the eye shapes. To add life to the eyes it can help to add a fleck of light reflecting. The eraser pen is really handy for this task. I’m aiming to bring details to Kiki’s very dark eyes, large curly haired ears and slightly droopy face, building up the detail using Magenta.

7

DARK TONE S Identify the areas which are the darkest, using the Dark Violet to make marks, adding sharp dashes for the occlusion shadows in the nostrils, corner of the eyes, and where the limbs meet surfaces. In the final stages I gently rubbed out the top layers of coloured pencil across the whole surface and added a dash of white gouache in the eyes. ▫

74 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

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Being in a very tiny house with teenagers I took my first leap of faith and rented a studio. I found this by driving around nearby towns looking for empty buildings and eventually found one in a lovely spot in East Devon. I now let my studio out to others to run art and nature journaling workshops to help fund the

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@AandImagazine ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 75

Often people think acrylic has to be used strongly and thickly, but it can be used softly with subtle washes and marks, just like watercolour, says LOUISE ANGUS

Creating a buzz e

dding acrylic markers give you the power to create paintings and works of art using a surprising range of techniques.

Featuring high quality acrylic paste, they make painting easy and hasslefree as they’re compact and easy to use; meaning they’re the perfect accessory for artists of all abilities. Whilst I’m predominantly a watercolour artist, I’ve found that these pens can be used in a very similar manner and can create really interesting effects not usually associated with acrylic paint. To show you how, I’ve decided to celebrate by painting the busy bumble bee. edding.com 76 A R T I S T S & I L L U S T R A T O R S

1

Download and print the bumble bee line drawing directly from the edding website.

I placed the line drawing behind my canvas and traced the outline with an edding medium nib in Warm Beige. This is a soft subtle colour that won’t show through when adding details to the bee. This is another great thing about acrylics; they’re semiopaque so you can cover up anything.

S T E P-BY-S T E P

LOUISE' S MATERIALS edding acrylic markers 5300 fine bullet nib 1-2mm, 5100 medium bullet nib 2-3 mm, 5000 broad chisel nib 5-10mm Colours 255 Warm Beige, 905 Traffic Yellow, 906 Sunny Yellow, 901 Black, 903 Gentian Blue, 926 Anthracite, 919 Hazel Canvas Winsor & Newton cotton canvas 40x40cm Round brush size 6 Pot of water Paper for testing paint colour Paper towel for blotting

2

I started with the yellow sections of the bee. Working relatively quickly, I partly traced around each yellow shape with the edding broad nib Traffic Yellow and added a little Sunny Yellow for contrast. I say partly traced, as I do not wish the sections to be block colour; the objective is to try and create light and dark tones within the bee, making it more realistic. Taking my brush, I then dipped it in water, blotted the excess and started to blend the colours. While I was using the yellow marker, I created a soft wash dripping effect on the bottom left-hand side of the bee. For this I used the remaining yellow colour on my brush and added more water to bleed it down toward the bottom of the canvas. Here you can always tip the canvas upright for the paint to naturally drip and should you require more colour on your brush, you can always stroke colour directly off the tip of the acrylic markers with your brush. ▸ ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS 7 7

STEP -BY-STEP

4

With the wings still wet, I took the Traffic Yellow and added colour along the wing lines and round the outer ends of the bee’s secondary wings. If the colour does not soften, blend again with your wet brush.

Next I moved on to the black sections.

I started with the round part of the body, taking the broad nib in Black and tracing the top right and bottom left and then blending with my wet brush, leaving the central part lighter. I did the same with the lower black sections and the head parts of the bee. While the black body parts were still wet, I added a little Gentian Blue directly with the marker, for a bit of vibrancy and contrast. With the Black on my brush from blending, I carefully filled in the bee’s antennae.

3

Wait for these sections to dry before moving on to the wing. For this, I took the medium nib in Hazel and traced round parts of the wings, often missing parts of the inner lines, pressing lightly.

This helps give a look of fragility. Again, I took my wet brush and softly blended, drawing a soft brown colour throughout.

5

Still making use of the black on my brush – but rinsing most of it off in the water – I brushed a very light grey wash over the bee’s bottom. You can always test your colour on a separate piece of paper first if you are unsure of the density. After this dried, I added strokes of Anthracite to create soft banding across the base. Next, it’s time to paint the legs. With the broad nib black marker, I drew around parts of the legs and blended the black with my wet brush to fill each section of the legs.

Here and there I added some Gentian Blue.

6

With the bee’s head dry, I traced the eye shape with the fine black marker and blended with my brush. Once the legs were dry, I moved on to using the Gentian Blue for the background. In between the legs and at the bottom of the bee, I drew lines and blended with my brush, often adding more water to dissipate the colour out from the bee.

7

With the watered down Gentian Blue colour on my brush, I used this opportunity to create fun splatter marks.

You may wish to practice this first on paper, but I simply held my brush lower down and tapped my finger to release the paint. I then did the same with the Traffic Yellow, Sunny Yellow and lastly Black, creating emotion and movement. Alternatively, if this technique does not work quite as well for you, gently tap your brush with a second brush (or stick, or even your fingers) with your opposite hand. This will give the paint enough force to travel across your canvas.

78 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

8

Once all the layers had dried, I fluffed up my bee with short pen strokes and strengthened up leg lines and wings with the fine markers. ▫

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Advocate for a Blue-Green Planet, acrylic on canvas, 41x51cm

Picture this

In every issue, we ask an artist to tell us about a piece of work that holds significance for them. This month we talk to SUSAN CLARE , an English artist who has spent much of her adult life in Jamaica. Her aim is to have her work play an influential part in protecting our natural environment Sir David Attenborough has been immensely inspirational to many with a love of the environment. I’d always been a fan, but the precise moment he became my total hero was in the Blue Planet 2 episode on coral reefs, when he made the world aware of every issue that we, in the scuba industry, had been struggling with for years.

In 1982 in Jamaica, I met a local environmental scientist and bird lover called Wendy Lee. Forty years later, I am amazed by Wendy’s accomplishments, every day, week in, week out, in caring for rescued 82 ARTISTS & ILLUSTRATORS

and injured birds at the Seven Oaks Sanctuary for Wildlife in Runaway Bay. She is another modern-day environmental hero, although of the unsung variety. She continues her work, with no funding, just a dedication that is awesome to behold.

I hope print sales of this portrait – available to buy on my website – will raise funds to help Wendy continue her work with a little less uncertainty. Given Sir David’s particular affinity with birds, it seems like a suitable match. susanclare.art ▫

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